This is as Good as it Gets
by Song Prompts
Summary: After making the decision to move across country for a better life, Edward and Bella find themselves packing up the clutter they've accumulated over the years. It takes them on a trip down memory lane, especially since the last thing they find is unbelievable.


Title: This is as Good as it Gets

Summary:  
After making the decision to move across country for a better life, Edward and Bella find themselves packing up the clutter they've accumulated over the years. It takes them on a trip down memory lane, especially since the last thing they find is unbelievable.

Pairing:E/B

Rating:T

Word Count: 2117

Song/Lyrical Inspiration: Unbelievable(feat. Hanson) by Owl City

DISCLAIMER: Twilight and its inclusive material is copyright to Stephenie Meyer. Original creation, including but not limited to plot and characters, is copyright to the respective authors of each story. No copyright infringement is intended.

I flipped the switch to turn the lights on in the garage and sighed at the mountain of boxes that had gone unpacked for years, along with just the sheer amount of _things_ cluttering the space. Bicycles, skateboards, pool floats; you name it, we had it.

Who knew that four people could accumulate so many things over the past ten years? I had no clue where to even start. Edward had recently been offered a position at a practice in Seattle, and it was something we just couldn't pass up. It meant better money to pay off his student loans that still loomed over us, and a better life for our two children.

Charlotte, who would be ten in just a few months, was our surprise baby. She was conceived just a few weeks before our wedding, giving two newlyweds an even bigger challenge than expected. Then there was Maddy, who had just turned six. Charlotte was having a difficult time with the move because she didn't want to leave her grandparents and all of the friends she had made over the years. Maddy was much more up for the adventure.

I finally decided that I would start from the back of the garage, where I was most likely to find all of the useless crap we just couldn't part with previously. Hopefully, after a few days of hard work, I'd be able to make my way to the front.

It felt like I had been working for hours, but when I looked around, it seemed like I had gotten nowhere. The _keep_ pile felt like it kept growing, while the _toss_ pile was so small it was laughable.

"Bella?" I heard Edward call to me from outside.

"In here!" I yelled at him.

I heard the door on the side of the garage open, then click shut as he made his way over to me. "Hey, what are you doing in here? Where are the girls?"

"I'm obviously having a tea party." I glared at him.

"Well, I could see _that."_ He smirked at me. He never took me seriously when I was hot and tired; usually, he compared me to an angry kitten. "Where are the girls, though?"

"I asked your mom to keep them until tomorrow. I was hoping to get through a lot of these boxes, but it's harder than I thought." I sighed.

He kissed me on the cheek. "Just let me get changed, and I'll come help, okay?"

I nodded and went back to work while he went into the house.

It was about fifteen minutes later that he came back dressed in a pair of sweatpants and a white t-shirt. As long as I'd known Edward I'd found him attractive. He looked amazing every morning when he left for work in his dress shirt and tie, but there was just something about him dressed down that always got to me. I imagined it was because that was how I had always known him before his medical career; casual. I knew he was an amazing doctor and that he would help so many people in his lifetime, but some days I longed to go back to when we'd just hang out in his room or mine and listen to music before we had to worry about diapers and little mouths to feed. I loved our girls so much, but some days I just wanted _simple._

"Okay, where do you want me to start?" he asked, clapping his hands together with way too much enthusiasm.

"Uh, you can take that corner over there." I pointed to the opposite corner from me.

He made his way over to his section of boxes and we worked together in silence for about twenty minutes before I heard him say, "Bella, you've got to come see this!"

I huffed at him. "Is it really that important?"

"Just get over here, lady!" he exclaimed, causing me to laugh for what felt like the first time that day.

"Okay, okay, what is it?" I asked as I pushed aside a few things to get to him. When I looked down into the box he was in front of, I couldn't help but gasp. There, sitting on top, was the dress that I wore to my senior prom. "Oh, my _God._ I could have sworn I got rid of this!" I said as I pulled it from the box.

"Holy shit! This thing is loaded with crap from your childhood!" Edward said excitedly. I tossed my dress on top of another box and got down on the ground next to the open one.

"You have got to be kidding me!" I laughed as I pulled out a few folded up posters, carefully opening them to reveal pictures of the Backstreet Boys and Hanson. "I had no clue I saved any of this. I wonder if you have a box, too?" I almost felt giddy.

"Here, you keep going through this one, I'm going to go look over here." He got up and moved over to another box.

I couldn't stop the smile that spread across my face as I pulled out a photo album. I laughed as I flipped through the pages full of pictures of younger versions of myself, Edward, Alice, and our entire gang of friends. I stopped on a photo of Emmett and Rosalie. It had been so long since we'd spoken to them. We drifted apart after college when Rose and Emmett decided they were going to move to New York after they got married. We talked regularly for the first year, but then babies and careers took precedence, and after a while, it just became a friendship of quick comments and likes on Facebook. I was realizing now how much I missed those early days with my friend and how much it sucked that we ended up growing apart.

I flipped to the next page to find a picture of me and Edward from when we were both fifteen. I cringed looking at myself.

"Oh, my God. I forgot about when you had those blonde highlights!" Edward said, peeking over my shoulder as he placed another box down beside me. "Where was this taken?"

"Um, I'm pretty sure it was outside of that laser tag place in Port Angeles." I flipped another page and heard Edward gasp.

"I can't believe it! How did we forget we had all this stuff?" he said as he pulled out his old Super Nintendo. "I wonder if it still works?"

I knew what he was asking. "We really should get through these boxes, but… fine. Are all the cables and games there, too?" I asked.

"Uh… yes!" He pumped his fist in the air. "Come on! Let's go set it up!" he said as he hurried past me.

I smiled when I walked into the living room and saw Edward sprawled out on the floor, controller in hand and Super Mario music blaring from the television. He looked like the little boy that I met in first grade. We'd been friends basically our entire lives. We'd had our ups and downs, and we'd even broken up for a year in college. In the end, there wasn't anyone else that I wanted to share my life with. I sat down on the floor next to him and he glanced over at me and smiled.

"I didn't even have to blow on the cartridge for it to work," he chuckled.

"I love you, you know that, right?"

He put down the controller and looked at me. "Of course, I know that. I love you, too. Are you okay?"

"Yeah, it's just going through all these things... I don't know, makes me feel kind of sad, almost. So many things have changed throughout the years and so many more things are going to be changing. It's just… _overwhelming_ ,"I said quietly.

"I don't have to take this job, Bella. We can stay here if you really—"

"No, you _do_ have to take this job, and I'm curious as to what's going to happen next. It's kind of like an adventure. I'm just being silly." I sighed.

He pulled my feet onto his lap, untying my shoelaces and pulling my shoes off. I closed my eyes, leaning back against the couch as he began to massage my feet. "Do you remember when you moved to Forks and we were in the same first-grade class?"

I nodded, wondering where he was going with this.

"Do you remember that almost every day I tied your shoelaces for you because you didn't know how yet?" I opened my eyes and stared at him. I had completely forgotten about that.

"What I'm trying to say is, there's nothing I wouldn't do for you, Bella." He said it quietly.

"I know. I'd do anything for you, too. Hey, how about we watch a movie?" I asked, wanting to end our night on a happy note.

"Sure, what did you have in mind?"

"Jurassic Park?"

"Yes! Velociraptors!" he exclaimed and I grinned at him. Some things _hadn't_ changed at all.

We hadn't gotten done much of what we needed to that day, but I wouldn't trade it for anything. Edward normally worked long hours, and it was rare that I actually got to spend uninterrupted time with him. I would gladly sit around and reminisce, playing video games and watching movies with him every day if I could.

"Do you remember when we bought this house?" He glanced over at me and then back to the now empty living room. It had taken a few weeks and a lot of help from our families, but we'd finally gotten through all the boxes and packed up the rest of the house.

I smiled up at him. "I do. We had only been engaged for a few weeks, but it was perfect and we just couldn't pass it up. Do you remember me standing in the kitchen telling you that I was pregnant with Charlotte?"

"I remember. I also remember being scared out of my mind. I'd hardly had enough time to be a husband, never mind a dad." He sighed.

"You're a great dad," I said, standing on my tiptoes and kissing him on the cheek.

"What about husband?" he teased.

"Eh, you do all right," I said with a shrug of my shoulders, but I couldn't help grinning up at him.

"Yeah. You're all right in the wife and mom department, too." He grinned back at me, leaning down to kiss me on the lips. "You ready for this?" he asked quietly.

"I'm always ready for a new adventure with you," I said honestly as we made our way outside to our girls, who were waiting for us in the car.

As we hit the road I didn't know what was going to happen next, and I discovered the thought of that was kind of exciting.

When we'd been in Seattle for about two weeks, most of the boxes had been unpacked and everyone had been adjusting rather nicely. Even Charlotte, who had been pretty apprehensive about the move, loved her new teacher and had already made a few new friends. Maddy, who had been excited about the move, was also thriving in her new class and we had even gone on a few playdates.

Edward's hours were still long, but now that he was part of a practice, his on-call hours were significantly reduced and he had most weekends off. It was amazing to have my husband around so often.

There were only two boxes left to unpack, and they were the ones that contained everything from our childhoods. I figured they were just going to end up in storage again, but it was when Charlotte came around the corner and asked, "Mommy, you have _more_ boxes? What's in them?" that I felt compelled to show her.

We sat down on the couch and the first thing I pulled out was the photo album. We sat there for a while, going through each picture as she asked questions about who people were. We giggled over the pictures of when her daddy had tried to grow a mustache when he was about fifteen with no such luck. Maddy eventually joined us when we got to the wedding album.

She gasped. "Oh! You look just like Cinderella, Mommy!"

I couldn't keep the grin off my face. I'd _felt_ like Cinderella that day.

It was when Edward finally walked through the door and joined us, somehow snuggling all of us closely, that I realized it didn't matter where we lived. This is as good as it gets.

It was unbelievable.


End file.
